Fracking foes ask for Lafayette moratorium, vote of residents

City Council says strategic enactment of emergency ban is best course

Lafayette resident Cliff Willmeng expresses his concerns about fracking within city limits at a City Council meeting Tuesday night.
(
JEREMY PAPASSO
)

LAFAYETTE -- Anti-fracking activists turned up the heat on elected leaders Tuesday night, submitting a petition with nearly 1,000 signatures that demands an immediate moratorium on any new drilling activity in the city.

Several residents who spoke before the City Council said the emergency moratorium the city drafted -- but has not implemented -- last fall is insufficient to protect the health and safety of residents.

Ultimately, they want residents to have a chance to vote this November on what role oil and gas drilling should play in Lafayette, as Longmont did last year when voters there chose to ban hydraulic fracturing inside city lines.

Although Longmont has been sued by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and the oil and gas industry because of its ban, Lafayette resident Scott Papich said the threat of litigation should not be a deterrent to imposing a ban in Lafayette.

"I would take litigation over the permanent damage a frack job will have on us," Papich said. "For the time being, until the citizens of Lafayette can vote on the issue, a moratorium is better than the promise or idea of a moratorium."

Many of those who spoke Tuesday are members of East Boulder County United, a group that formed last summer to oppose drilling for oil and gas in Lafayette and Louisville. They specifically denounce fracking -- a process in which oil and gas companies inject a water-sand-chemical mix deep underground to free up deposits of gas trapped in subterranean rock -- as a particular danger to air and water quality.

The industry says fracking has been in use for decades and has been proven a safe extraction method.

Lafayette City Administrator Gary Klaphake said he was having trouble understanding what anti-fracking activists were actually trying to achieve with their petition. He said it wouldn't serve the city's interests to put in place a moratorium with an expiration date now when there is no prospect of a drilling application coming before the city.

There hasn't been a new well drilled in Lafayette since the mid-1990s.

"I don't think the City Council ever said it is against a moratorium, but the city attorney has said a moratorium doesn't last forever and if it wants to put one in place it should get its best mileage about when it can be used," Klaphake said. "I'm under orders that if there is any application that comes before us, the council wants to know right away so it can enact a moratorium."

Councilman Brad Wiesley said the city attorney has assured the council that any new drilling application that is submitted can be halted by the emergency moratorium.

Councilman Pete D'Oronzio said many members of the council are on the same page as those who are worried about the effects of drilling, but they need to figure out the best strategy for dealing with the state on the issue. COGCC has been clear that the authority to regulate the oil and gas industry rests squarely with the state.

Cliff Willmeng, who is on the steering committee of East Boulder County United, said it's not just new wells that are a concern but existing or abandoned wells that can be re-activated. There are 14 active gas wells in Lafayette, according to the COGCC.

"All of these could be re-entered and all of these could be re-fracked," he said. "Some of these wells are within 50 feet of homes."

Willmeng said the Silver Creek residential development, under construction northeast of U.S. 287 and Baseline Road, would be on top of two active wells.

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